Absolution
by lynnxlady
Summary: Complete [set partially ingame] WakkaxRikku [Rikka]. Apologies and forgiveness can be difficult to come by for people as stubborn as Rikku and Wakka, but it's usually worth it.
1. Absolution

A/N: Y'know, this was originally supposed to be a two thousand word one-shotter. Now it's the first of three, approximately four thousand-word, chapters. See, it was asking for a little (but only a little, because Rikku's a little young and they've got a pilgrimage to concern themselves with) more in the way of romance, and I didn't think I could do that in anything shorter than that. ^_~ This chapter is more friendship fic than anything, but there will be hints of romance later on. I'll try to update weekly on this one – with the winter break coming up, it should be easy.

   The Calm Lands.

   He'd never been past them. He could remember his relief, as a younger man, when Father Zuke had chosen not to continue past them. Yuna, he knew, wouldn't change her mind.

   Tonight, they were camped under a depression in the eastern cliff face, one that provided shelter from three of four sides. While the others slept, Wakka kept watch just inside the mouth.

   He didn't mind that he'd gotten first shift, because it wasn't like he could sleep anyway. He had too many things to think about.

   Okay, he'd be honest. To _brood_ about.

   Brooding was not something he did very often. It was pretty much a waste of time, ya? You pondered a matter from every angle possible, and in the end, you found yourself more depressed than when you had started. He had managed to grow up parentless and then outlive the brother he'd loved like breath with a minimum of brooding.

   He ought to be able to survive having his faith broken without resorting to it.

   Yuna had taken it well enough, he thought. Compared to her—well, he had always been with the others, but she had had to face Seymour alone. Next to her, he had nothing to be down about. Hell, why couldn't dead people do like they were supposed to do and let people send them?

   Wakka raked his hands through his hair. All right, if he were going to brood, he'd do it thoroughly.

   First. Maester Mika was unsent. He hissed irritably, and skipped onto the next point.

   Second. Maesters used the same machina the teachings of Yevon forbade. Which meant he would have to apologize to Rikku, unless there was some perfectly logical reason he was missing, as to why the maesters could use forbidden machina and Rikku shouldn't.

   Third, Wakka really didn't like to apologize.

   Fourth—

   It occurred to him that maybe, as part of being on watch, he should actually be looking out for trouble, instead of staring dejectedly at the ground. He stood abruptly, and started pacing.

   Fourth, Yuna was going to die. He had accepted that fact years ago. It was almost a relief, you know? Knowing how and when someone would go. It could—and did, too often for his liking—happen any old day to anyone else, but Yuna wanted to be a summoner and make her pilgrimage. Stupid as it sounded to him now, a part of him had always thought that was one less person he had to worry about dying on him, because he refused to believe she could possibly die before she had the Final Aeon. That was just how strong her determination was, that he'd been swept up in it.

   Which brought him back around to the fact that Yuna's death was unavoidable, and he had just spent a valuable half hour making himself more depressed.

   But, you know, screw that. Because he had a right to brood. It wasn't often one lost one's brother, one's religion, and one's sister all in a row. Yuna was his sister, blood or no blood.

   And he would lose her.

   _Religion. That thought carried him around to the fifth bit. He had tried valiantly to fit the pieces of his shattered faith back together ever since Bevelle._

   _So the maesters are corrupt, ya? Well, so what. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the teachings—_

   Even as he thought that, he shook his head. It might very well be true. But he didn't have the heart left to try and believe it. His insides were shaking too much from too many betrayals, one after another.

   "_Damn it!" he bit out, and then looked guiltily at his sleeping companions. Sir Auron, closest to the entrance because he was the strongest in a fight, had sprung halfway to his feet. Seeing this, Wakka scratched the back of his head sheepishly._

   "Sorry. Was thinking, you know?"

   "Do you always think aloud?" Sir Auron asked irritably.

   Wakka shrugged as the older guardian settled back down against the curve of the cave's wall.

   Then he froze, the significance of the giggle from the middle of the row of bodies just sinking in.

   A particularly bubbly giggle that, he guessed, had been caused by Auron's comment.

   The likes of which he had never heard Lulu or Yuna make.

   His suspicions were confirmed when he just made out a head-shaped shadow poke up from behind Yuna's shoulder. Standing, the little Al Bhed girl stumbled out toward the night.

   "Oops, sorry," she said as she tripped over Sir Auron, who stirred again and frowned a little.

   She stretched when she was next to him, flinging her arms up and bending backward. "He~ey," she said, giving him one of those wary glances she reserved for him. Both of them were polite to one another, but nothing more, since the events at the Al Bhed Home. He didn't hold many grudges, but he'd held fiercely onto the one against the Al Bhed.

   Now he'd finally let it go, he found himself in the awkward place between hatred and friendship, and not able to find the words to verbalize his changed feelings to her and not sure if he should. So he just didn't say anything.

   "Sorry I woke you," he said stiffly. So he wouldn't have to look at her, he devoted his attention to cracking his knuckles.

   "Oh no, I've been awake for forever," Rikku said, shrugging. "It's so hot in there. Anyway, I just didn't want to wake anyone up, so I stayed put."

   He snorted. "So that's why you—"

   "Well, you'd already done me the favor of waking up everyone who I would've woken up—that is Kimahri, Lulu, and Sir Auron—so I decided I might as well come out." Boosting herself, she sat on one of the pieces of rock that jutted up randomly from the plains, and let her legs dangle down.

   "Oh," he said because he couldn't really think of anything better to say. He continued his pacing while she swung her legs. The silence stood uncomfortably between them, and the apology he ought to be making stuck in his throat. He wished she'd go crawl back inside and go to sleep.

   Wakka grunted irritably. "Hey, y'know, I think the only one I woke up was Auron," he said finally, just for the sake of saying something.

   "You're noisy," she told him with a distracted shake of her head. "I can take this shift, if you want to get some sleep," she offered after a moment.

   "Uh—" Wakka chewed on his bottom lip. "I think I'd better take it, you know? It's—"

   "Shut up!" she burst out, suddenly fierce. He frowned at her, trying to figure out why she was so angry. He was being polite and not _too _protective—after all, she was the youngest and weakest of the guardians.

   "How can you keep on with that? It's just dumb, because it should be obvious by now that I'd never let anything bad happen to Yunie!"

   _Oh, so that's why._

  She reminded him, with her intense eyes that were green and strange—though he couldn't make out their color in this light—and her golden hair and tawny skin, of an sleek, angry cat. Chappu had a cat once, he remembered. Ran away and probably served as a fiend's midnight snack, but while it lived, it had lived as irritably and regally as possible, and once when he'd tried to move it out of his bed, it had swiped a chunk of meat out of his nose.

   Wakka folded his hands behind his head. "I know that," he said with an annoyed huff of air. "Calm down, ya? I meant because it's dangerous."

   "Sure," she said. "Why can't you just let it go? I mean, it's been forever that you've been going on like this! You liked me before."

   "Yeah, well—" He wasn't quite sure what to say to that. Well, actually, he knew that he should say, "I'm sorry, I was wrong" or a variant thereof, but apologies never came easily to him, and especially not when he was getting accused of something.

   "I liked you before too," she continued in a heated whisper. "Then you had to go and turn all pigheaded and stuff, and then you just had to go and say that about Home—'pretty fireworks, ya?'" she mimicked, her voice cracking.

   He winced. She was really just a kid compared to him, not that anyone could make it through fifteen years of life with a child's vulnerability, and never mind that he had considered himself a man at her age. Sometimes he forgot, but she was six or seven years younger than him, and she'd just lost her Home to boot.

   So he kept a tight hold on his temper, even though the line she had brought up was nothing more than a clumsy attempt to comfort her. Call it a faltering attempt to make things even a little right, as he had fumbled to offer…something in the immediate aftermath of the whole utter _wrong_ of Home's destruction. It had got him in the gut, like another betrayal, though he wasn't the victim this time around. Somehow it was like he had betrayed _her, as ridiculous as that thought was. Now, the hurt in her voice made him want to duck his head in shame. "Yeah, well, maybe that was kind of a shoddy way to phrase it, ya?"_

   "No kidding." She crossed her arms over her chest, and blew a few pieces of blond out of her eyes with a puff of breath.

   Damn it, he'd just apologized, or come close to it, even if it wasn't for exactly the right thing. And she either hadn't noticed or was holding out for a better one.

   He mirrored her, crossing his own arms over his chest, with his blitzball tucked under his elbow.

   He wasn't about to let go of his pride a second time over. It wasn't as if he actually cared what a stubborn, too-cheerful Al Bhed girl thought of him.

   Well, maybe he did, because she was right that he _had_ liked her, and as he thought that, he decided he still did, it had just got muddled up in the hate earlier.

   But he wasn't going to—

   He bared his teeth at her and expelled air noisily from his nose. _All right. This shouldn't hurt too much more than getting gutted by a fiend, and Yuna managed to put me back together after that. _

   "I was wrong. Now go to bed, or else you'll regret it in the morning when you have to convince Tidus to share the coffee with you."

   "You—" Rikku stopped. "Well…I'm not weak, you know?! I've been training up recently and Sir Auron is right there."

   Another argument, he thought. Apparently he'd been exonerated of accusing her of being a risk to Yuna, only to get growled at for something else. This really wasn't worth the effort.

   "But—" There a pause, in which he could feel her quick, searching eyes on him, even though the thick shadows hid her exact expression. "But, I'll wait to yell at you until the morning."

   And as she curled up opposite Sir Auron inside the entrance, he was left with a distinctly anticlimactic feeling. _That's all?_

~*~

   A high-pitched screech from the Dual Horn as it attacked—dodge to the right—shit, _it was going right—_

   The ground chose that moment to slam into his chest and knock the wind out of him, but his inability to breathe was of little concern next to the hot, wet agony in his right side.

   _Not again, he thought while his lungs fought to fill with air and black dots fought with dirt and grass over which would feature most prominently in his field of vision. __If anything important—say an organ or two or three—that belongs inside__ is outside, I'm going to lie here and pretend like I'm dead until they finish them off and put me back together._

   He didn't, of course. Instead, he shoved a fist into the earth and pushed himself to his knees. Nothing flopped out, so he judged the gash as being relatively superficial and heaved up onto his feet in time to launch his blitzball at the second fiend.

   Alongside him, Rikku shouted, "Hey, let's give this spell thingy a try!" There was the shimmer of white magic, followed by the wash of Cura over him.

   "Didn't know ya'd learned that," he said, giving her a grin because it felt damn nice when one stopped spewing blood all over the place. Tossing his blitzball from hand to hand, he watched Tidus slice his sword across a fiend's eyes. Seeing the in left by Tidus' attack, he fired the ball _hard_ and brought the remaining fiend down.

   She'd have healed him before, if they'd been on the field at the same time—something that had rarely occurred in the past few weeks, either by fortunate accident or subconscious avoidance on their part—but it still felt like a bright shining _sign that things were all right again._

   So afterward he chose to walk alongside her instead of Tidus or Lu, his usual companions of choice. "You're learning white magic?" he said, feeling a little silly but trying to ignore the feeling.

   She combed her fingers through her sweat-damped hair. "I have been for a little while now, y'know," she drawled.

   "Uh—I didn't notice." He adjusted his grip on his blitzball, trying to ignore the way he seemed to be slipping from silly to stupid, at least in his own estimation.__

   "I know _that," she said._

   They had talked _before, hadn't they? About little nothing things, about how potions and remedies left a bad taste in your throat for days, about fighting techniques and blitzball._

   Yeah, he could remember several different conversations distinctly. So this shouldn't be so damned awkward.

   "You know, I haven't forgiven you yet," Rikku said, as if she could hear his thoughts.

   Oh. Right. He'd forgotten—blame it on his tendency to steer clear of the concept—that there were two distinct elements to a successful apology.

   "I _apologized, ya? What more am I supposed to do?" he protested anyway._

   "You _sort of apologized. But you don't need to do anything more—well, except give me time and all that. It takes a little while, you know? And I got a lot on my mind anyway!" She chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes focused on some point in the distance._

   He could feel his own expression darken at the thought, but he quickly shoved all thoughts of Yuna's approaching death to the back of his mind. As he'd proved last night, brooding over things didn't make one iota of difference. He'd deal with it after it happened.

   "Well, don't take forever. I'd like it before I die." Only after he said that did he realize just how depressing that statement was, because how often did you hear of a guardian outliving his summoner, with the exception of Sir Auron? Maybe he wouldn't have to come to terms with Yuna's death because he'd be dead too. "Of old age," he amended hastily.

   She gave him a sad smile that looked out of place on her face.

~*~

   Yunie was going to die.

   It was stuck in her head like the refrain to the catchiest, most morbid song ever. She couldn't so much as hear herself respire without thinking it over and over in time to her breath.

   _Yunie-is-going-to-die._

   It was even worse if her companions were breathing too, which was the way she preferred them actually. Even Wakka. Then it was _Yunie-is-going-to-die_ in seven different rhythms, like a chorus from the Farplane.

   It had been catching up to her, dogging her heels ever since Yuna had casually mentioned to her, one summer when they were both curled up together lazily under a slim patch of shade, that she was going to become a summoner once Sin came back. Rikku had been giddy all that summer because Yunie was at Home on a rare visit. She could still remember that Yuna had had a book held loosely in one hand, and kept reaching back to twirl a finger in her mousy hair.

   And until Yunie had to open her mouth, it had been perfect, in the way a moment can only be on reflection after it gets broken apart.

   Now it had latched onto her, the realization finally hitting home.

   Yunie was going to die.

   Unless she and Tidus pulled some magic solution out of a hat before Zanarkand, but with every step that looked more unlikely.

   That left her with two options. Try to kidnap Yuna again (and for some reason that course of action never worked) or else stand by her like a good guardian and watch her sacrifice herself.

   _Yunie-is-Yunie-is-going-to-going-to-Yunie-is-die-die-Yunie-is-going-to-die-going-to-die—_

   No, not a chorus from the Farplane, she thought. A hymn of Yevon. The name changed from summoner to summoner, but the verses were always the same, and Spira sang it with the same damned fervency every time around.

   _Spira is a summoner-killing machina, she wanted to yell at Wakka._

   Not that it was really Wakka with whom she was so frustrated with that she could scream. No, he was just the only zealous Yevonite at hand. Possibly former zealous Yevonite, she thought with a considering frown. Even someone as stubborn as Wakka had to break eventually when the cold hard truth was brought crashing down on his head by his own religious leaders.

   Not that the specifics mattered.__

   She could just _cry with helpless anger. She wouldn't, of course, because it wouldn't serve any purpose except to give her a headache, but she could feel the prickling of hot tears anyway._

   Kicking a clump of grass because if she didn't do something she would go crazy, she sent up a flurry of dust that left her coughing (_Yunie-is-going-to-die_, hacked her thoughts) and earned her a frown from Sir Auron.

   She shot him a scowl right back. He'd walked this path with a summoner—_both of them her kin—not once, but twice. Two summoners he'd worked to keep alive long enough so they could die on schedule._

   He assumedly had reasons, but she couldn't imagine why someone would want to put themselves through this hell twice.

   Or once.

   Except that she did understand _once_. If she couldn't stop Yuna from dying for Spira, she would stand by her as guardian and friend and cousin until the end. It would hurt like a barbed knife slipped between her ribs and then twisted, but if she didn't, she would never forgive herself.

   Looking away from Sir Auron, Rikku's gaze skimmed over their intended destination—Rin's shop, to pick up supplies before they moved on to Mount Gagazet. She could only be thankful that they'd released their chocobos earlier, so that they could walk and benefit from the experience of fighting fiend after fiend. Their slower pace on foot gave her time.

   Time to save Yunie. In theory. In practice, it seemed more like time to formulate wild plans only to discard them for their impossibility and time to worry so intensely that she couldn't sleep some nights.

   She was still able to keep up her upbeat outlook on the outside and even on the inside more often than not—though never during the night, then worry wore on her like a, a parasitic _thing_ gnawing on her stomach—but it took effort and coffee.

   She pursed her lips. What she could use right now was an argument with a pigheaded Yevonite—something that would make her mad enough that she could forget about Yunie briefly.

   And of course he'd had to go and (_kinda, sorta, and not very gracefully_) apologize last night. A pigheaded blitzball player who'd argue over plays and team histories, or a pigheaded warrior who'd argue against the value of machina weaponry, might do just as well, but she hadn't yet forgiven him and didn't want to give him that impression by going to him for a friendly quarrel.

   With a sigh, she went to go pester Tidus again. Surely he must've thought of _something by now._

~*~

   _To forgive was a sacred action. Yevon was not a god, and the Al Bhed didn't have any deity they worshipped in his place. She had never felt any religious longing. There was no God, and if somehow the Yevonites were right, well, she quite frankly didn't want anything to do with him._

   But some things were sacred and received due reverence. Magic, whether white or black, was; priests who didn't waste their position and power on themselves were; and forgiveness was the most sacrosanct of all. You couldn't just toss it out without meaning it.

   So she had taken the time she had told him she needed, yanking her thoughts away from Yuna, and reached a point where she meant it. Because his words, _I'd like it before I die - minus the __of old age that made it an everyday, insignificant hyperbole - had stuck in her head, playing harmony to _Yunie is going to die_. She knew, and was annoyed by that knowledge, that he hadn't intended to guilt her into anything. That just wasn't a tactic Wakka would take. He wasn't subtle enough for it._

   He had drawn the third watch that night. As he and Lulu switched off, she remembered what he'd said to her a handful of nights ago. _Oh right, I need to talk to him about that one. I'm improving, I've taken the occasional watch before, and that sort of protectiveness isn't exactly necessary._

   Still, it was kind of sweet.

   She stepped carefully over Auron's outstretched legs, not wanting to trip over the gruff guardian again.

   "He~ey," she began nervously. The sky was overcast tonight, and she could barely make out his subtly darker shadow against the thick black of the night. She stuffed her hands into her pockets.

   "He-ey," he mimicked. In two syllables of singsong, she could tell he probably sang painfully flat.

   It was surely a sign of madness that she found that endearing. Of course, the mimicry itself was mildly annoying.

   "I stayed up just so I could talk to you, and you ought to be appreciative."

   He mumbled something.

   "Mmm-hmmm. Now say it so I can understand it."

   She was getting the impression that he had a hell of an aversion to the word 'sorry.'

   "That was dumb of you. If I wasn't on watch, I'd be sleeping, ya know?"

   She tapped her foot pointedly, before she realized he couldn't see it in the dark and the plains muffled any sound. "Hhhmph!" she said instead, and reentered their shelter. This time, she made an effort to trip over Sir Auron so she'd have a reason to talk ("Oh! Sorry, Sir Auron"), which would guarantee Wakka realizing she had left.

   "All right—sorry about that," he called after her.

   She came back. "So 'sorry' really _isn't_ a dirty word back in Besaid."

   "Wha?"

   "Never mind.

   "I forgive you," she said, suddenly uncomfortable with the formality of the phrase. Then, chewing her lip, she darted forward and hugged him, awkwardly because his crossed arms and blitzball were mashed up between them.

   And he breathed in her cool distinctive scent, like licorice, only more feminine, and felt her hair tickle against his nose, and thought that maybe this apology business wasn't as painful as he'd previously thought.

   Of course, then she started to tell him off for being overprotective. But that was all right too, because it told him uneasy silences were a thing of the past.


	2. Temporary Solution

      Snow dusted her hair, ice crusted her eyelids, and the layer of sweat between her clothes and her skin told her that she'd never feel warm again so long as they were on Gagazet.

   Rikku trudged, knee deep in snowdrifts, clutching a torn black cloak shut with one hand and wishing that Lulu could clear them a path.

   "In an ideal world, _whoosh, _Lulu would melt us a way to Zanarkand and we'd get there in ten seconds flat," she complained to Kimahri, the owner of the nearest set of ears. With a little gasp, she clapped a hand over her mouth.

   "No, I didn't mean that, I didn't! It's much better to slog through this snow. Builds muscle and saves on magic. Yeah," she said in a rush.

   The Ronso looked at her for a moment with his unnerving yellow eyes. "Rikku is right," he said finally, as if remembering that she had told him she liked to get a reply when she talked to him.

   "Yeah."

   It had been four days since they'd last seen a regeneration point, places where magic bubbled to the surface and refreshed both health and magic stocks. That had been just prior to the most recent battle with Seymour—one that had heavily sapped both Lulu and Yuna's mana.

   _That guy should just die for good already,_ she thought, blowing out a little _hhhmmph_ of air. She rubbed her hands together and stomped her feet to try to warm herself up.

   _I'm a creature of the desert, darn it. I'm not made for this climate._

   Her eyes lighted on Wakka, to her right and half a dozen paces ahead of her. He wore a bright yellow cloak that matched his blitzer uniform. At least there was no chance of losing _him_ out in all this white. "Hey, Wakka! Wanna donate that to a good cause?"

   He paused, and waited for her to catch up, which made her hopeful. He thought she needed looking out for, didn't he? And it _was_ often annoying, but at heart Rikku was highly opportunistic. Maybe he'd be all manly and self-sacrificing and stuff, and let her borrow his cloak.

   "Donate what?" As she caught up with him, he reached out and brushed melting flakes from her head.

   "Thanks," she said, returning the favor by flicking ice from his shoulder guard. "Your coat, obviously."

   "_What?_"

   "I guess that's a no," she pouted. "Aren't you worried lil' me will freeze to death out here?"

   He snorted, and said, "You'll be fine," but only after looking her over surreptitiously.

   Rikku tried to look as pitiful and sickly as possible—laughable, really, since she was healthy as a Ronso despite her much smaller frame, but Wakka didn't need to know that.

   "Well…"

   Sensing he was caving, she darted forward and under his cloak. "Never mind the donation. This way I get free body heat too."

   When she glanced up at him, he looked surprised at having her tucked against his side and under his arm, perhaps because of how deftly she had helped herself to his space before his blitzer's reflexes had kicked in—

   "You're getting _ice_ in my armpit," he said through his teeth.

   Or maybe that was why his eyes were so wide.

   "Oops," she said unrepentantly.

   "You little—"

   "Hey!" A shout from Tidus cut off whatever Wakka had been about to say. "Look, it's the caverns!"

   Rikku ducked away from Wakka and stumbled forward in the closest thing to a run possible in three feet of snow. "Shelter_,_" she squealed happily.

~*~

   After each party member took advantage of the regeneration point just inside the entry way, they used conventional methods to start a fire. Cloaks and blankets and scarves were hung in shifts to get vaguely dry, the guardians either huddling together under whatever wasn't currently draped over makeshift racks, or branching off in a scouting party of three.

   Her cloak strung up over the fire, Rikku chose to share with Tidus. "_So?_" she hissed at him.

   "Um…so?" he asked, scratching his head.

   "Yunie," she said flatly.

   "Oh. I don't have any ideas yet. C'mon, you know more about Yevon and Spira than I do. You must've come up with something."

   "You promised Cid," she said sternly, his last comment echoing in her head.__

   "I know…" His eyes flickered away from hers, and when she followed their path, she saw he was watching her cousin with something indistinct but sad in his eyes. When Yunie glanced up at him, he quickly looked down at his feet.

   Having done her bit of Tidus-prodding for the day—and feeling a bit bad for him after observing the look he sent Yuna—she settled back against the stone and fiddled with the ends of her twin braids. "So, what happened?" she changed the subject abruptly.

   "Huh?"

   "Back by the fayth," she elaborated.

   "You mean with me blacking out and all?"

   "Yup."

   "I just fainted. Nothing major, not in a valley full of magic and fayth and other stuff that'll make your head spin."

   She chewed on her lip. He seemed to be telling the truth, and probably it was just her imagination, seeing dangers to her friends where there were none—but it continued to nag the back of her mind.

   Lulu, Wakka, and Kimahri returned to the campsite then. "There's no point in continuing to dry your things," Lulu informed them. "Part of the tunnel is underwater."

~*~

   "Water?" Tidus repeated.

   "Water," she confirmed.

   "_Cold_ water," he continued.

   "Probably frigid."

   "We're going to swim it?" Tidus asked in a resigned tone.

   "Well—that or walk across it, but since she said _underwater_ and only one of us is a summoner anyway, my money's on swimming."

   "Let's blitz, then," he said without any enthusiasm whatsoever. Wakka and Tidus had recently taken up the traditional sports cheer as a sort of battle cry.

   "Yup," she said, fingering her damp but warm cloak mournfully.

   "Hey, you two!" was the only warning she got before Wakka shouldered his way in between them.

   "Hey," Tidus said distractedly, all his attention on the sudden dip of the tunnel straight ahead of them. There, a dark pool of water lapped gently at the cave's floor.

   Wakka, she thought, looked far more enthusiastic about this than anyone sane had a right to be. "You look happy."

   "Sir Auron says there's some sort of Trial under there." He gestured with a jerk of his head. "You," he gave Tidus a friendly punch on the shoulder, "me, and you," he moved to do the same to Rikku, but she dodged quickly out of the way, "are gonna go and make a stairway appear somewhere." 

   She glanced over at Tidus. "And this explains why he's happy?"

   " 'Course it does. He's clearly _insane,_ and—_ow—_"

   Wakka had tackled Tidus into a wall. Rikku giggled. "Boys, boys, boys!" she scolded, shaking her finger at the two older men.

   "_What_ is this?" Lulu asked as she rounded the corner, mild amusement showing in her voice.

   Wakka looked up guiltily. "Uh—haha. Slippery there, ain't it, brudda? Want a hand up?"

   "I think he just killed me. Thus, swimming just isn't going to happen," Tidus groaned, propped up against the wall.

   Rikku grinned. "You big baby. Don't worry, we'll make him kiss it better—"

   Wakka yelped and reached for her, but she scooted out of the way.

   "Okay, _Yunie _can kiss it better!"

   Wakka yelped louder. "Don't give him any ideas!"

   Her cousin, Rikku noted, was blushing.

   There was the sound of Sir Auron's throat being cleared, followed by the owner frowning pointedly at the water.

   "Looks like we got a job to do, ya?" Wakka said.

   "We're counting on you three. If it gets dangerous, pull out quick," Lulu instructed.

   "Right!"

   "Be careful," Yuna added quickly to all three of them, but her eyes were on Tidus.

~*~

   The first Trial was easily accomplished, thanks to Tidus' blitzball-gained ball-handling skills; the second took a moment of thought, but required no real effort on their parts. A hard battle with the Sanctuary Keeper followed, which left Kimahri with a mild concussion and Rikku with a broken arm—but Yuna quickly took care of that, and then there was nothing left to distract Rikku from the mix of ghostly blue and brilliant white on the horizon.

   _Zanarkand._

   Fear choked up in her throat. _Yunie's going to die. _There wasn't anything left to do. Tidus didn't have any ideas, Sir Auron wouldn't let her have time to "rest" (but actually to think), and she wasn't winning her argument with Yuna.

   "Tell Cid thank you."

   _No._ Cid would break Tidus' neck for this, but that wouldn't make her feel any better, and then he'd look at her with all that disappointment in his face. All the summoners she had helped save, and she couldn't rescue the one who mattered most.

   "No, you can tell him yourself!" she flung out, trying to cram all her emotions into her eyes so that Yunie would see just much this hurt her. Willing her to realize how pointless, how _stupid _all this was. 

   "Please…"

   "Yunie, don't say that because…we're going to see each other again, okay?" her voice rose with every word.

   There was no answer.

   She thought about how she'd just been teasing Tidus and Wakka earlier, how she'd wasted that time that she could have been thinking, and it was all her fault, and—

   _Don't do this, don't do this to me and Dad and Brother and Tidus and Wakka and everyone. Please don't, don't die, don't die—_

   Her thoughts ran on, chaotic and rambling and tinged with hopeless desperation. She had to force her feet to move for every step down the winding path. Tidus, she noticed vaguely, wasn't there. She wondered if he were hiding from her wrath, or what. But fear and hurt crowded too much of her head to leave room for anger.

   It wasn't his fault, anyway.

   She felt her mouth twist into a miserable frown.

   She felt like she would burst from all the useless frustration bouncing around in her head.

   She hated nothing more than feeling futile.

   Then her mind seized hold of one last, wild idea.

~*~

   Damn this. He hadn't thought about how horrible he'd feel once they reached Zanarkand. It would be better if he could just forget until after the fact and then it would hit him like a brick _oh, Yuna's dead_. But at least he would be able to concentrate on keeping her alive until the time came for the Final Summoning.

   It wasn't just him, either, because even he could tell _it_ was at the forefront of everyone's thoughts. A grim air had settled on them all like a veil, and since Rikku's outburst no one else had said anything. They were a silent, solemn line moving down the final stretch of mountain.

   _Like a damned funeral procession._

   Caught up in his thoughts, he started violently when a cold hand grabbed his bicep and a feminine voice hissed in his ear, "_Wakka!_"

   He turned around, briefly entertaining the thought of wrapping a hand around Rikku's throat, just to scare her, and then blaming it on reflex.

   "What?" he asked.

   "Help me kidnap Yuna," she said. Her eyes were intent, almost sparking with emotion, her fair brows drawn low over them, and her mouth set in a determined frown. He had never seen her quite like this before, and it was a little unnerving.

   "Uh—"

   "You care about her, right?" she demanded.

   He frowned at her.

   "Okay, that was an obvious question," she said, waving one hand in what might have been an apology. "You and me—I'll, um, tell her I have something to give her in private and then you sneak up behind her, and then we'll tie her up and drag her off to the airship before Sir Auron figures it out."

   She was fierce with desperation, despair too if he read her face right. He felt bad for her, but…

   "Rikku—" He bracketed her shoulders with his hands.

   "You _care_ for her. Friends don't let friends kill themselves!" she squirmed in his grip.

   That hit him like a sucker punch, and brought his temper flaring up. _How dare she. _"You think I didn't try to talk her out of it?" he snarled. "When she first started talking about being a summoner?"

   "Well—"

   "You think _Lu_ didn't? Kimahri too—what, you think you and Tidus are the only ones who don't want to see Yuna die?"

   She was biting her lip. His hands, he noticed, were clamped on her upper arms so tightly that her skin had gone white around his fingertips.

   He released his hold on her.

   "Then stop her," she said, and it came out as a whimper. "Stop her. _Please._"

   Eyeing the imprints he'd left on her guiltily, he took a deep breath. All right, let's see if the girl would listen to sense. Funny that _he'd_ be the voice of reason for anything, really, but life was weird sometimes. "So—say we stop her—"

   Her eyes widened. "Yes," she said eagerly.

   "_Say_ we stop her. This is purely hypothetical, ya?"

   "Yeah," she said, but he didn't think she believed him.

   Well, she'd figure it out soon enough. "Then what?"

   "Then we take her to the airship."

   "Then what?"

   "Then, we hang onto her until she figures out we're right and promises not to go back on pilgrimage. Then she can go back to Besaid, or stay with us, or whatever."

   " 'Figures out we're right?' So, what if she doesn't? Then what?" He crossed his arms over his chest.

   A flash of realization scrawled across her features. But she said, "Then at least she's alive!"

   He shook his head. "You think Yuna would want to live in a cage?" he asked softly.

   "It's _not_ a—not really, not that much, oh _hell._" She kicked at the ground, and then knelt with her elbows resting on her knees.

   She looked so forlorn that he tried to comfort her. "Just try not to think about it, ya?"

   Rikku jolted to her feet so fast that her head slammed into his jaw. "Don't say that!"

   And with that, she tore off down the slope, leaving him to wince and wonder what he'd said wrong this time.

~*~

   At the base of the mountain, they had made camp for the night. A makeshift shelter was propped up against a dip in the land; flames roared in an open pit; dinner had been prepared and then eagerly devoured by most. Discarded cloaks and blankets were strewn here and there to make another, hopefully more successful, attempt at drying them out.

   They were settled around the fire, spaced out in twos and threes. And that damned silence had finally been broken. Directly across the fire, Sir Auron and Lulu were speaking in low tones. Tidus had finally reappeared nearly a half hour after he'd fallen behind them, and now he and Wakka were making half-hearted attempts at conversation to her right. The four familiar voices blended into a babble of background noise that was oddly soothing.

   She, on the other hand, was unusually quiet. Her knees hugged to her chest, she rocked back and forth lazily, most of her attention riveted on Yunie.

   The older girl sat closest to Kimahri, who stood at attention, facing out from the fire. Her hand was curled loosely on a fork, which she used to push food around on her plate. Flame and shadow shifted in changing patterns across her serious face. The flickering light did things to her appearance, made her look one moment like something fierce and deadly and not-quite-human, a creature out of an old legend, and the next like a vulnerable little girl.

   After a long time, Rikku crossed over to her cousin. She had to make things right, _before_.

   "Yunie? Yunie, I'll go with you all the way and fight Sin and watch you—watch you summon the Final Aeon. I just wanted to let you know," she said in a rush, the words tripping over one another on her tongue. If she took her time she was going to cry.

   A pause. "Thank you," Yunie said.

   "You do realize I'm only saying this because Wakka and Tidus won't help me kidnap you," she added.

   Yuna gave a breathy little laugh. "I wondered if that might be the case."

   "You know I don't approve, and you know if I had a say in it, you'd be far, far away from here," Rikku continued.

   The answering nod was little bit jerky, and she thought she saw tears in her cousin's eyes, though it might have been a trick of the firelight. "I know."

   "But I decided this a long time ago: that if I couldn't stop you, I'd at least be there with you when it happened. Got that?"

   And when she hugged her cousin, she did cry, but she swallowed her accompanying sobs so Yunie wouldn't know.

   Later, she noticed her left shoulder was wet again.

~*~

   _"If one of us has to become a fayth…I volunteer." Lulu._

_-_

_   "This is my story. Either it'll go the way I want it to go…or else I'll end it here!" Her heart leapt to see Tidus stepping forward, doing something—he'd come up with something!_

_   "Wait. You say it's your story, but it's my story, too, you know? It would be so easy... to let my fate just carry me away…following this same path my whole life through. But I know...I can't. What I do, I do... with no regrets." Yuna, no, Yuna, don't do it—wait, did she say something about not following the same path her whole life? Yunie what are you thinking?_

_-_

_   "Sin is an inevitable part of Spira's destiny. It is never-ending."_

_-_

_   "The Final Summoning…is a false tradition that should be thrown away." Yuna, her strength finally showing through like tempered steel._

_-_

_   "Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try."_

_-_

_   "I will defeat sorrow. I will stand my ground and be strong. I don't know when it'll be, but someday I will conquer it. And I will do it without…false hope!"_

_   Rikku pumped her fist in the air._

_-_

   "Yuna! This is our story! Now let's see this thing through together!"

~*~

   "We killed_ Yunalesca,_" Wakka said.

   She caught Tidus in a fierce hug as he and Auron entered the airship's bridge. "We killed Yunalesca!" she sang out. Adrenaline from the battle mixed with bubbling elation. "We did it, Tidus! Okay, so I didn't come up with anything exactly and maybe it was mostly thanks to you but it happened anyway and Yunie's safe and we did it!"

   "Yeah..." Tidus glanced over at Yuna, his mouth splitting into a broad grin. When he ran over, yanking her into his arms, Rikku's gaze swept back to Wakka.

   He was staring at his blitzball—the weapon that had dealt the final blow to Yunalesca's last form. "We killed the first summoner," he told Rikku when she trotted over to him and propped her elbow companionably on his shoulder.

   "Yup!" Looking up at him so that her jaw rested in the crook of her arm, she caught his eyes with her gaze. _Oh._ He had brown eyes. _Pretty_ brown eyes, like chocolate or like rich mud you could drown in—

   _Well, that proves that I have no poetic skill. And besides, the color of his eyes is neither here nor there._

   "Aren't you happy?" she asked, tilting her head quizzically and staring at his nose.

   "We killed Yunalesca," he pointed out again.

   "Yup!" Happiness roared back up inside her. Containing it was impossible. She flung an arm around his neck and kissed him hard. "The Final Aeon is gone—and Yunie's fine—and we're all still alive—and now we'll go get Sin some other way and live happily ever after, all of us together and—"

   "All right, I get the point, y'know?" he said, laughing. He gave her a friendly fist to the shoulder. "See? We didn't even have to kidnap her and it all worked out. Told you it would be better not to worry about it."

   She sighed contently, her joy still wriggling around inside her. She was far too happy to bother refreshing his memory, which seemed to have been curiously edited just a bit.

~*~

   _Even if you did defeat Sin…Yu Yevon the immortal would just create Sin anew…_

   He had a bad feeling about Yunalesca's last words. They'd just killed a legendary summoner, and he suspected they would have to kill God before this was through.

   But it was a little late for regrets. He'd tossed his lot with Yuna long ago, and sealed it with his actions in the Dome at Zanarkand. _"Ha! I'd never forgive myself—no way! Not if I ran away now! Not even in death, ya!"_ he had said, and it was still true. Even if the only other option was death—because how could you kill an immortal?—he wasn't going to run.

   Listening to the burr and buzz of the engines, he absently toyed with one of Rikku's weapons, a Ninja Claw, that she'd left on the table in the small compartment Cid liked to pretend was a "suite." It was where Yuna and guardians were currently housed, when they were on board.

   They'd done a scan using the airship's machina sensors, and located a ruined something. Might be a temple, Cid said, and so they'd locked in a course and now the engines churned noisily, propelling them toward their destination.

   He traced the claw's curving blade carefully with his thumb. It, tellingly, didn't slice him. She'd need to sharpen it if she planned to take it into battle.

   His eyes sought her out. On a cot in the far corner, she lay, sprawled out in sleep. Her mouth was open and she was drooling, he noted with amusement, filing it away in his mind to tease her about later.

   _She was beautiful._

   It wasn't a new thought. He was a guy, she was hot. He wasn't blind. Normal stuff.

   But it was supposed to be more of an observation, the way he sometimes noticed Lu's darker beauty. A distant bit of lust, one he'd never dream of acting on. If sometimes he harbored a thought or two about her long legs or the bronze curve of her hip, it was a vague fantasy with no real connection to Rikku. Just a shapely blonde with a pretty face; interchangeable with any other shapely blonde in the world.

   _Rikku_ was a girl with a ready grin or smirk; hair she liked to play with; small, practical hands, calloused on the palm and fingertips; an accompanying stream of words because she never did shut up; with a stubborn streak nearly as wide as his and a bubbly laugh.

   And recently, he had begun to give a thought or two to _that._ Not intentionally because they tended to sneak up on him, sandwiched between innocent thoughts, but it was definitely _Rikku_ in them, not just some cute girl with a spill of wheat-colored hair down her back.__

   He shook his head. Better to think of her as a little sister, another Yuna, even though Rikku was too—(_sleek/tanned/grinning/fierce/stubborn/giggly/silly/brilliant/perfect_)—different for him to think of her as a second Yuna. But she probably liked him in a purely platonic fashion, like he was another Tidus to pal around with, joke with, flirt with but not seriously.__

   Anyway, some things were better left unsaid. He'd get over this little crush, without her ever needing to know—

   "He~ey," she chirped, opening one eye. "Been watching me awhile, huh? I'm cute, ain' I?"

   She stretched her arms lazily, her slim back arching.

   "Uh—" he winced. _Sneaky Al Bhed._ "Cute? Yeah, that little strand of drool right _here_," he nudged the corner of his mouth with his knuckle to illustrate, "is charming. And the way you snore is too cute for words, ya?"

   He was rather pleased with his swift recovery.

   Frowning, she flung her legs over the side of the cot and sauntered over to him. Her hands were planted on her hips. "For one, I don't _snore._"

   "Of course not. I forgot. Girls don't snore, they hum through their noses, ya?" He grinned up at her, aware that she didn't snore and determined to pretend that she did.

   "And for another—" She leaned over, one hand splayed on the tabletop, the other grabbing a handful of his vest. "You think I'm cute."

   "Eurgh," he said intelligently, his brain short-circuited by her scent.

   Her nose was almost brushing his, and then she bent her head a little and grazed her mouth over his. The kiss was dry and gentle, a featherlight version of the one she'd smacked him with after Yunalesca's defeat, but he could still feel heat rising to his face.

   "You're blushing," she whispered.

   "So are you," he pointed out, brushing his thumbs over her rather pink cheekbones.

   "I am not." She pulled back and gave him a lopsided smile. "Later. Oh, and by the way? I like the way you look when you're confused."

   He watched her flounce out of the room, feeling completely bewildered and very embarrassed.

   "You just threw one hell of a wrench in Operation: Think of Rikku like a sister," he called after her.

   Her laugh echoed back to him, quickly followed by her still-pink face poking back inside their 'suite.' "_Good,_" she said. "If you dare complete that mission, I'll have to hurt you."


	3. Resolution

   She had a very definite feeling that _something_ was underway between her and Wakka, and the equally sure feeling that she had knocked him off-balance and secured the upper hand in one maneuver.

   That pleased her.

   She had her long legs kicked up front of her to rest on a console on the bridge, and her arms crossed under her head. Leaning back in the swivel chair, she had a nice view of the bridge. Cid yelling at Brother in Al Bhed provided a pleasant background noise for her musings.

   Her mouth took on a slow, lazy smirk, and she laughed softly to herself. Her emotions were in a tangle of bubbly excitement. At the moment, she was besotted with the immediate future.

   Like what was going to happen whenever she saw Wakka next. Ooh, she'd really gotten him there, hadn't she? He couldn't deny he liked her like _that_ now. He might be annoyed with her, but that was okay because he really was funny when he was irritable. Either way, she couldn't wait to talk to him again.

   "Heh," she said, wrapping a strand of hair around one of her fingers.

   The bridge door whisked open, emitting Yuna. "You look happy," she said, approaching her with her hands clasped behind her back.

   "Mmmm-hhmm," Rikku acknowledged. "But actually, the word is _smug._"

   Yunie tilted her head. "What?"

   "I look smug. Or I should, anyway, because that's how I feel. Rightfully so, too." She flashed Yuna a grin. "Have you seen Wakka recently?"

   "No…" Yuna's voice gained pitch before trailing off in a question.

   "Oh." Rikku went back to examining the blond lock curled around her finger.

   "Why?" Yuna asked upfront, probably realizing Rikku wasn't going to reply to her indirect inquiry. "Did you do something to my guardian, young lady?" she asked, her tone teasing but uncertain. As if she wasn't quite sure if she was allowed to tease Rikku–something she'd have to get the older girl over. Yunie and all her barriers, sheesh. People were supposed to tease their cousins.

   But for now—

   Rikku's mouth pulled up into another grin. Very deliberately.

   "You did!" Yuna said.

   "Nothing bad," Rikku promised. Then, because she couldn't resist, she snickered as evilly as she could.

   "You did something pranklike to him," Yuna said. Her soft, hesitating voice was entirely unsuited to the stern tone she was aiming for.

   "Is 'pranklike' even a word?" she asked.

   "Er—no—Rikku, you're changing the subject."

   "Yup." Rikku stood, lacing her fingers together, and stretching her arms. Her knuckles cracked. "Don't worry, Yunie. I think he liked it."

   With that exit line—and it was a very nice exit line, she thought, turning it over in her head and admiring it—she made for the elevator.

   Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yunie shrug.

~*~

   Wakka, she decided fifteen minutes later, was avoiding her.

   This took some skill, since she was clever and sneaky (it went with her chosen profession of thief), and as the airship was cramped and very linear in design.

   It implied a certain subtlety on his part, one that he'd never displayed before. After all, he was _Wakka._ She could only think that she must be rubbing off on him, and despite her frustration, she couldn't help but be proud.

   She was, however, beginning to second-guess her earlier thoughts, and she felt a strange, worming embarrassment in the pit of her stomach. Pressing her fists to her burning cheeks, she leaned back heavily on the metal wall and slid down until she was sitting with her knees tucked to her chest.

   If he was just being contrary—and it was a very probable _if_—he was going to pay for making her feel like this, she decided.

   There was a sudden, noisy _clunk-whir_ that shook the corridor and sent her head knocking back against the wall and then jolted her chin down onto her knees. With a wince, she stumbled to her feet, her mouth spouting off a string of curses in Al Bhed.

   "Learn how to _drive!_" she shouted at the nearest intercom, even though the connection went only one way.

   Another tremble ran through the airship. She flung an arm out and braced herself in time to keep from falling. The opposite door opened to reveal Tidus. "What's happening?" he asked.

   "My idiot Brother is happening!" she fumed. The floor was behaving normally again, but she didn't trust Brother enough to leave her post by the wall. "My guess is that we're there. He usually manages to steer decently until he has to park it," she added grudgingly.

   The intercom buzzed. "Kids–and Auron and Kimahri–we're here. Get your butts moving! The water's littered with ruins, and we don't want to stress the short-distance hovers, got it?"

~*~

   "Oh, _this _place," Tidus said, catching hold of a ruined bridge support. Nodding her own recognition, Rikku watched him clamber up but made no move to follow him.

   When he had gained the bridge and stood looking down at his summoner and fellow guardians, she cleared her throat hopefully. He reached down and caught hold of her wrist; her fingers locked around his forearm, as she heaved up onto the nondescript brown platform. Wakka, his bill of red hair dripping, boosted Yuna up alongside her. After he had done the same for Lulu, Rikku crouched down above him. Elbows resting lazily on her knees, she offered him a smirk and her hand. _Avoid this, 'brudda'._

   To her surprise, his face flushed again. She felt her mouth tug into a wide, involuntary grin, and suddenly felt much friendlier toward him. Any trace of doubt was removed. "I'll have to remember how easily you blush," she teased, "for devious purposes in the future."

   He brushed a hand over his face, as if to wipe the red from his cheeks with the icy water. "Hhhmph." His eyes lingered on her proffered hand, until she thought he wasn't going to take it. But then his larger one encompassed hers. Bracing herself, she tugged to help him up—

   —and, with his sudden _evil_ smile her only warning, was yanked off-balance, the rough textured stone grating against her shoes as she was dragged forward. She went back down into the water with a splash and a yelp that gulped the frigid liquid into her lungs. Fumbling instinctively for a hold, she caught a handful of his blitzer's vest and another of his hair. There was the press of his torso against hers, his legs tangling with hers. She wondered if he was blushing now, but was too busy, you know, drowning, to be amused.

   But not too busy to feel a little physical twist of interest.

   Still, drowning was incredibly unsexy, so words burbling from her mouth, she kicked free and up until her head broke the surface. "You—you little—"

   One problem—his entire head was still underwater. Meaning that his ears were below the surface and she had been on the verge of wasting the little breath she had regained. At that moment, he jerked underneath her, his arm hooking around her neck to help him drag his face to the air, and back under she went. She squirmed her way out of his grasp. Just before she emerged again, she glimpsed, through the foggy blue of the water, his feet gain purchase on the courtyard's submerged floor. Moments later, his face came up alongside hers.

   Their gasps for air mixed with his rueful laughter. _Laugh, will he?_ she thought, reaching out to grab hold of his hair and dunk him.

   "Wakka, stop…playing," Lulu called. Rikku reluctantly halted her revenge mid-gesture.

   "Hey! Klutzes, you sure you're up to fighting a nasty fiend? In the water, I mean?" Tidus demanded.

   Rikku glanced around worriedly.

   Tidus gave a shake of his head. "Nah, not there. Hurry up."

   Once she had finished hacking the water from her lungs, she scaled the short distance from the water to the bridge. She trotted alongside Wakka, trailing behind Tidus until they stood above a deep chamber, one that was almost completely flooded. She could make out deep shadows that might have been the entries to off-shooting halls and rooms.

   Tidus did a lazy dive; she and Wakka followed with twin cannonballs, almost colliding mid-jump.

   "Whassup? Something here?" Wakka asked, treading water to her right. She prepared for the inevitable long swim by taking a series of deep breaths, expanding her lungs with each.

   "I almost got eaten by a fiend here," Tidus told him. "Payback time!" 

   Wakka nodded. "I get the picture. Let's go!" The three of them exchanged a high five, Rikku inhaled as much air as she could hold, and then they all plunged under.

~*~

   She burst from the water with an accompanying spray of water, gasping in mouthful after mouthful of sweet cool air. Her chest was burning from prolonged time underwater, not to mention one hell of a battle. It was really enough to kill a girl, no matter how strong a swimmer she was.

   As her rapid panting began to slow, she staggered up into the long, dimly hall. Swiping matted blond hair away from her eyes with one hand, she dug wearily in her satchel for a potion with the other, wondering what effects protracted use of the healing drugs had on a person's body. Despite the wonders of magic and medicine, there was no true replacement for time and rest. Sometimes she could feel the strain of it, like she was being held together with cheap glue.

   "I hate fish," she heard Wakka say as he waded up into the chamber. He had a hand clamped to his shoulder, and blood oozed out around his flexed fingers.

   "What's up with these weird statues?" Tidus called, poking one quizzically. Behind each, a glyph shimmered. Changing tints of blue, purple and orange shifted across each magical projection like they were strewn there by the wind.

   "Come here, kid. Lemme see that arm of yours," she said to Wakka. "If you don't know what it is, don't touch it," she added to Tidus, who ignored her and continued to investigate the row of seated, animal-headed figures.

   "Kid?" Wakka asked, through his teeth.

   "Didn't you hear? Everyone in our group except for Auron and Kimahri is a kid." She pushed his hand away from the wound. She prodded it gently, earning a curse from her patient. It went deep, a long red trench ripped from shoulder to elbow. Her guess was that a good-sized chunk of muscle had been torn free.

   _It'll need a Cura,_ she decided.

   "Yeah, I heard your Dad's commands. But if I'm a kid, you're a baby, ya?" Suddenly, he hissed in pain and batted her hand away. "Shit. You're supposed to be healing me, ya? Not stabbing at it with your fingers."

   "I'm at the top end of toddlerhood, at the least," she corrected absently, extending her mental grasp to dip into her mana stocks. Biting her lip, she carefully siphoned just enough—couldn't waste it, not in a strange place like this, not when she was the only white mage of the trio—and cast the spell. With meticulous care, she guided the wash of white magic, knitting bone and muscle and skin with far more precision than she could have managed on the battlefield. There, amidst the chaos and rapid-fire pace of a skirmish, the most she could do was throw a spell in the general direction of the wound and hope for the best, knowing it would at least dull the pain and flood the body with fresh energy.

   His stark, pained expression relaxed as she worked. When she finished, she handed him a clean rag from her supply kit. "Clean up the blood, kid."

   "Baby," he returned.

   She smirked. "Sweet-talking is cute, kiddie, but it won't get you anywhere."

   A look of surprise crossed his features, before he got it. Shaking his head, he took the cloth from her and swiped haphazardly at the red stain that went from shoulder to forearm. When he tried to pass it back to her, she scooted away. "Gross!"

   He shrugged, and tucked it in a pocket.

   "Will you stop flirting with Rikku already and take a look at this?" Tidus grumbled.

   "I'm not flirting with Rikku," Wakka said.

   "_I'm_ not flirting with Rikku," she added. "So divide your plural 'you' into—"

   "It's not plural. Wakka's more competent than you," Tidus said. Snorting to express her annoyance, she contemplated several possible revenges. Then she carefully sidled until she was so near his smell—salt water and coppery blood and fish guts—filled her nostrils. Her nose scrunched up delicately, although she probably didn't smell any better herself. He was bent over the first of the right row of statues, tracing a chiseled cutout with his finger. "Looks familiar, doesn't it?"

   She waited—careful, careful, can't let the target know too soon—and then pounced, her hands darting under his vest and then up, her fingers tickling over his ribs. He yelped with laughter, trying to catch her hands with his. "St—stop, _Rikku_, that—tickles damn it—"

   "That would be the point," she said.

   "It's my turn to say it: stop flirting with Rikku already," Wakka grumbled.

   "Jealous? If you want, I can tickle you too." But instead she released Tidus. She took a few steps and began examining the heavy sculpture. "Think it's a fayth or something? I mean, probably not, since there's six of 'em..."

   "Six Cloisters of Trials," Wakka pointed out.

   "Yeah, yeah. Didn't you two hear what I said before?" Tidus jammed a shoulder between them and tapped the base's inset design with his forefinger. It was a bit blurred, as if time and weather had worn away at the finer details, but she could still tell it was the sharp-beaked profile of a bird. "There."

   Wakka nodded. "It's an outdated Besaid brand," he said. "You can still find it in some parts of the temple—it's Valefor."

   Tidus shook his head impatiently. "You're missing the point. You know, that one Rod of Wisdom I found in Besaid Temple, when I was messing around on my own?"

   "The weird, kind of broken one?" she asked. "The one that won't take modifications very easily?" She had a bit of an ongoing grudge against that weapon of Yunie's—it wasn't very old, but something made it almost incompatible with the newer modification techniques Rikku used. Machina or magic, it had stubbornly fought each new skill she had tried to add.

   "Yeah. We didn't throw it out, did we?"

   "No-o, I don't think so," she said slowly. "We decided to keep it because it came from the temple. And it's got that weird device on it—like, _oh._ Like Valefor."

   She dipped a hand into the satchel she wore over her shoulder. "I think I'm the one who kept it," she added. "Hhhmm." Her fingers sifted through medicinal flasks, gems, scrap metal, finally brushing against a cool, smooth curve. "Ah, here it is." She brought out the luck sphere. "Sir Auron wouldn't let me use it," she added. "Because it's from Macalania Temple and all, and see, here?"

   Fumbling her hands over the sphere's surface, she found the raised symbol and showed it to her companions. It was an icicle crossed with a spear, with a lock of braided hair twined around both. She examined the statues carefully until she found a corresponding brand. Kneeling, she _clicked_ the sphere into place.

   A humming filled the air, setting her teeth on edge. The glyph flickered rapidly in and out of existence before it faded away entirely.

   "Sure, trigger the-whatever-it-is without a warning, ya?" Wakka complained, raking a hand through his hair. Tidus adjusted his grip on his sword, shoulders tensed and face alert.

   Rikku stuck out her tongue, but she was waiting just as warily for something more to happen. Her gil was on a pissed off fiend busting out of the statue any moment, spraying them with shards of stone and dust. But an uneventful minute dragged by, and then a second and a third. She breathed a sigh of relief. "See? Everything's fine."

   "For now. But you got to take it back," Wakka said. "Who knows what'll happen then? Maybe they're all nice as long as you're giving them goodies and slit your throat only when you steal them back."

   "Take it back?" Rikku wrinkled her nose. "_Why?_"

   "Six statues. Six Cloisters. We only recovered items—keys if you will—from five. You wanna lose this one to some Al Bhed treasure hunter while we're in Zanarkand?"

   "Good point," Rikku conceded.

~*~

   All right, so 'think of Rikku like a sister' was probably out of the question. _Probably._ It was best not to discount any possible armor, when one was fighting off a surprisingly stubborn crush.

   All he had to do was replace Rikku with Yuna mentally, and then he'd be sufficiently guarded against anything resembling lust, infatuation, and etcetera. Except that Yuna was not flirty and blond and did not kiss people to prove a point. But that was unimportant, really, and—

   Okay, so that wasn't going to work. Then he'd replace Rikku with Yuna, and himself with Tidus. If Tidus let Yuna flirt with him and give him a pouty smirk, or watched her long lean tanned legs and the wiggle of her hips as she jumped up and down in adrenaline-fueled glee…well, he'd have to go and 'talk' to his friend. So he had a responsibility as one big brother to another to go and let Brother beat him up.

_   Basically, that means getting beat up by an Al Bhed with a mohawk who can't fight worth beans, ya?_

   …Which was a really unappealing thought. And that was why he was going to continue to avoid Rikku.

   The way he had when he had yanked her on top of him into the water earlier. _Riight._

   Well, he couldn't let her have the last word, you know? He had just neglected to think the action through to the end. He would just have to remember to do that in the future—think, that was.

   _Okay, it's decided, ya? Stop thinking about it._ Crossing his arms over his chest, he dropped from a seated position to a laying one, his back and shoulders against the cold metal of the airship's outside prow. He concentrated on the fierce rush of moist air on his skin, the brilliance of the unobscured night sky above him.

   He had to admit, he was almost fond of Rikku's father's airship. He had taken to spending time on the nose, and it had a certain appeal—something about the speed or maybe the dropped-stomach sensation that went with being thousands of feet from the ground and staring down at it—that natural forms of transportation couldn't compete with.

   He was probably doomed. If her damned _machina _were starting to grow on him, he didn't stand a chance against Rikku herself.

   And he should feel guiltier that that thought made him glad. Glad that he could run his thoughts in circles and brush it off as _nothing, really_ all he wanted, but he'd end up giving in all the same.

   Pushing that train of thought aside, he brought his attention abruptly back to his surroundings by rolling over onto a new, colder patch of airship.

   It would be…interesting…to see Zanarkand again, he told himself. Most guardians only lived long enough to see it once. Successful summoners only saw it once. And—

   Y'know, he might as well cut the 'thinking in circles' crap now. He was good at that; maybe being a Yevonite was some kind of training camp for it. But hey, if the end result was going to be the same…

   (_mouth on mouth, her hair loose and spilling down in a blond curtain, warm browned skin on skin, her tank top pulling taut over her front as her back arched, her pretty hipbones peeking up above her shorts)_

   He hissed. Yeah, Brother ought to be allowed one or two good shots at his mug. But he was going to be selfish and not let him have them.

   And he would do things right—y'know take her to dinner and kiss her on the second date and meet her family in a proper way, rather than the _damned Al Bhed heretics_ glowering kind of way—once this was over.

   Speaking of her family, he probably ought to apologize to them before he even mentioned Rikku. That would be good, he thought, flushing with shame. Not just to get in Cid's good graces for—what had Rikku said earlier?—for devious future purposes; he'd really made an ass of himself.

   He winced. Apologies were a torture like none other. Why hadn't he realized that before he opened his mouth?

   Oh, and he would stop avoiding her. That might be a good step to take. So she didn't think he was indifferent.

~*~

   After a trip to Zanarkand's Cloister of Trials, they went on a cross-Spira hunt to locate the trader O'aka. It had come to light that Wakka had sold him the red armlet they found in Kilika Temple a few months prior when money had been tight and their packs had been weighted down with too many weapons. Wakka grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of his head, an expression and gesture that Rikku found endearing. She resolved to embarrass him sometime in the future so he'd do it again.

   It was only after they recovered the Kilikan key that Rikku had time to reflect back on her little ongoing…um, flirtation?...with Wakka. It dawned on her that everything had pretty much fallen back into its usual place. But that was okay, she decided. It felt as if she had set aside a project for later, rather than been forced to send it screeching to a halt. He had given up any attempt to avoid her (which coincided with her discovering his hiding place out on the outside bridge) and they still talked and joked and flirted. She could sense the undercurrent of interest. It was just that they had this guardian job to do, so it stayed comfortably below the surface.

   But on their second trip to the ruined temple, she decided she might as well give him a casual reminder. Just so he didn't forget or anything. She darted forward and caught the underside of his jaw with her mouth, in what was probably the sloppiest kiss ever. "Oops," she said, fiddling with her hair and offering him the most innocent smile possible. "I, um, tripped. Heh."

   "The all purpose excuse," Tidus said from behind her. "Kiss them or kill them, it's all good if you tripped before doing it."

   "If we were smart, we'd have tripped before we killed Seymour," Wakka suggested. She felt him thread his fingers into her ponytail.

   "Nah, Guado traditions are different. We'd have had to accidentally somersault backwards for that one," Tidus explained.

   "Don't mess with the hair," Rikku warned, reaching up and snaring Wakka's hand with her own.

   "You messed up my beard, ya?"

   "That is not a beard. That's a set of five hairs that happen to be on your jaw."

   "Hey!"

   She looped her right arm casually around his neck and propped her opposite elbow on Tidus' shoulder. "So, what's the plan?"

   The three swimmers were going ahead to investigate the statue-filled hallway and unlock the whatever-it-was. Yuna and the others would wait until they returned with definite information, since it would be risky to escort what amounted to four noncombatants through the submerged hall with just three guards.

   "Try to avoid battles the way there at any cost," Wakka said. "So we'll be whole, just in case we free something really nasty, ya know?"

   "And then try to do clean up on the way back?" she suggested. "So there's fewer fiends around when we bring everyone on through? I'm guessing there's a fayth back there, so we'll have to guide Yuna there, at the least."

   Tidus shrugged. "Sounds good."

~*~

   Rikku poked Tidus in the side with her elbow. "Do you think we're ready to defeat Sin now?" she asked in a low tone. Yuna was kneeling in front of them, her shoulders trembling as she recovered from her assimilation of the aeon Anima.__

   His mouth was pursed, his eyes distant. "Probably," he said after a moment. "You'll want to talk to Auron, of course…but he'll probably say we are."

   She frowned. "What's wrong?"

   He shook his head. "Nothing really. Just thinking about stuff."

   Yuna staggered to her feet at that moment. So Rikku shrugged, deciding to take him at his word. At least for now. She dashed forward to help her cousin.

~*~

   They were back in Bevelle, quite possibly the last place he had ever wanted to see again. Machina fixtures provided puddles of artificial blue light to illuminate the chamber of the fayth; musky incense tinted the air. He guessed the latter was pumped there by some kind of machina, because he didn't see any burners.

   Yuna and Tidus stood before the small cloaked fayth, talking softly. Despite their low tones, he could make out the words exchanged. He listened intently, because he was sick of lies, weary of ducking from the truth or even digesting it in small, palatable pieces. Might as well rip away the last shrouds to reveal the reality underneath, in all its harsh glory.

   It didn't even hurt this time. Maybe it ought to, because (_Yu Yevon was once a summoner, long ago. He was peerless. Yet now he lives for only one reason: to summon. He is neither good nor evil, he is awake yet he dreams)_ left no ambiguities he could piece back into some semblance of a religion. Maybe it would sting later, when the full significance sunk in.

   And maybe he had expected something like this ever since Yunalesca's words. Maybe he had, at the very back of his head, hoped for it. Even prayed for it, as ironic as he knew that was. The revelation left him feeling drained and empty, but somehow it was better to be hollow than to drown in a hundred thousand _what-ifs._

   After the fayth had disintegrated into a scattering of pyreflies, and the rest of the guardians had left the chamber, he stood for a moment looking at Bahamut's stone fayth. Then, stuffing his hands in his pockets, he went to catch up with the others. He had all the answers. That had to be enough.__

~*~

   It was much harder apologizing to Cid than it had been with Rikku. It felt like everyone on the bridge was watching him, as he stumbled over the words he'd rehearsed on the way out of the Bevelle Temple. But it was still kind of a relief, ya? It was best to get that off his chest now, just in case he died—the whole clean conscience thing, you know.

   And then Cid located Sin with the ship's sensors and they were on the way. To defeat Sin, to kill Yevon, to bring the Calm. He wondered if they were making history or if they would fail, and their only place would be as the idiots who offed Yunalesca and took away the Final Summoning.

   Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered, except that he was sticking by Yuna's side and not running, that adrenaline was flooding his system, that his blitzball was in working order, and that he was going to kiss Rikku before they left.

   You know, just in case he died. Or—

   —Nah. No need to consider that. The only possible outcomes he would contemplate in the name of being balanced and realistic was that they might all come out of this, worn and bloodied and maybe a little broken, but still alive; or that they'd all die.

   _(Not that Rikku…or you know, anyone else…would die and he'd still be alive.)_

   Because that wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair but he wanted to pretend that it was, at least for a little while.

~*~

   She was in the 'suite,' packing her battle bag. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth. As he walked in, she used the back of her hand to swipe hair out of her eyes. "It helps if you put it all back in the ponytail, you know," he told her.

   "I _know_ that. This part's too short." She stretched to reach their supply cabinet. "Um…is this our last mega-phoenix?" she asked, pulling the item out.

   "Yeah. We only had two, you know."

   "All right…that's it for the medicine, then. Now for my mix goodies." She went back to the cabinet, withdrawing little packets and boxes. Each had been carefully labeled. As she sorted them into her bag, she talked to herself or maybe to him. "Let's see, I'll put elemental gems in _this _pocket…probably can only fit one or two spheres in here…hhhmmm, we should've stocked up on stamina-springs…"

   How to do this? "You done?" he asked, scratching the back of his head.

   "Almost." She crammed another box into the main pocket, and then zipped it shut with a flourish. "There."

   "You know, how 'bout—for luck, ya?"

   She cocked her head to the side, confusion creasing her brow. "Uh-huh?"

   He felt clumsy and silly, in sharp contrast to her easy confidence. It wasn't something he was used to. 'Smooth' he had never been, but in spite of that, he hadn't ever felt much embarrassment about it. But around her, whenever things went beyond friendly conversation and casual flirtation, he seemed to be swimming in it. He reached out anyway and gripped her shoulders, brushing his thumbs over her skin.

   Feeling awkward as hell, he leaned closer. Just then the puzzlement lifted from her face. She said, "_Oh._ For luck. I get it. Hee." She flung a hand up and caught the back of his head, crushing his hair flat. As she brought her mouth crashing up toward his, he smashed his against hers, in a frantic attempt to beat her to it. After all, he couldn't let her have the upper hand again.

   The kiss was an awkward wrestling match for the first two seconds. But he quickly figured it out, drawing heavily on the memory of the few times he and Botta's sister had messed around behind his and Chappu's hut. He traced the top of Rikku's lower lip with his tongue, and her mouth parted agreeably.

   He guessed that she tasted the way sin and heresy and transgression must taste, like licorice and strawberry and the mediciney aftertaste of potion. Her mouth was warm and enthusiastic against his, her small capable hands tangled roughly in his hair. He was an addict, he thought. A Yevonite hooked on a pouting smirk and the shine of blond hair in the sun and green Al Bhed eyes. There had to be some decree against this, some church ordinance that declared her mouth and skin an illegal substance. He wanted there to be, because he wanted to break another nothing-law from his nothing-God.

   _A damned summoner,_ he thought bitterly, the anger finally breaking through the indifferent dam he'd built up. But then she trailed her calloused fingertips over his collarbone. As interest jumped to an intense yearning want, he lost the train of thought. A strand of her hair was in his ear and it _tickled_ damn it but he'd have to take his hands away from the curve of her spine to deal with it, and well, he didn't want to do that quite yet.

   Because there might be nothing left of him but a Farplane memory this time tomorrow. Of any of them. _Of her,_ his mind finally getting out what he hadn't wanted to think about earlier.

   He should have her take a final inventory of his weapons and make any last minute modifications to the three he intended to take with him, instead of this. So he broke it off reluctantly, batting her hair away from his ear and brushing a strand of saliva from her mouth with his thumb.

   "Yeah, you're right. Enough luck for anyone there, huh?" She reached back to fix the snarled mess he had made of her ponytail. "What were you doing with my hair? It's like I was in a windstorm or something."

   "It looks fine to me," he said with a shrug, even though it didn't, and leaned back against the wall to watch her brush out her hair. He wanted to stretch out this last guaranteed hour they had, make it last an eternity and a half, so he could kiss her and tease her; talk to Tidus about blitzball and tell him to treat Yuna right and joke around with him and Rikku like they were all immature kids; go and rib Lu a while and receive a caustic comment for his efforts; stand comfortably with Yuna and Kimahri, not talking about anything really, just enjoying the familiar presence of a pair of old friends; and maybe he should give Sir Auron a nod or something like that: a wordless acknowledgement that while they had never been even casual friends, he respected the older guardian. He thought about these seven people he had spent the last six months of his life fighting and walking and living with, these people he trusted utterly, even when he'd been at odds with them, because you had to trust the man or woman guarding your back or else you were screwed.

   He wondered what came next. Death, maybe, but what happened if they won? Would they scatter across Spira? Tidus would stick with Yuna—Kimahri too—but would Yuna return to Besaid?

   Would Rikku and he fall apart like the dissimilar people they were?

   _There's a reason why I don't like to think about this type of stuff._ With that thought, he started talking 'shop': his blitzballs, her selection of wrist blades, armor.

~*~

_   His arms and legs were churning through thick molasses water. Tidus swam alongside him. "Gonna pass it?" Tidus demanded, the words clear and distinct despite the surrounding water. He brandished Chappu's sword in the loose ready pose he preferred._

_   There was a blitzball tucked under Wakka's arm. He didn't dare pass it, for fear their side would lose it. For some reason, he couldn't get his mouth to work; couldn't tell Tidus, could only propel himself forward in painfully slow motion. He had to get it through the goal in the next ten seconds or they'd lose the game and Yuna would die. But there was something against his side, and something that felt suspiciously like a pair of elbows digging into his chest, keeping him from rolling over which was an important maneuver because he had to dodge Sin—_

   He woke up with a shout, disoriented and panicked, his body jackknifing to get—whatever the _hell_ it was—away. His forehead slammed into someone else's. He snarled from the white implosion pain, the other person's answering hiss dimly registering in his mind.

   A pair of icy hands latched onto his shoulders, pinning him back against the cot. "That _hurt._ And you sure take your sweet time waking up."

   _Rikku._

   "What the hell—"

   All the pieces finally made their way through the thick sleep-fog clinging to his mind. Rikku was sitting on his cot, limiting the already small space it offered. Sin was gone; so was Tidus. Yuna was safe, and he'd repossessed the Brotherhood for a second time. Shit, he hated that. What use did he have for a sword? Tidus had had to go and just, vanish into nothing on him, leaving behind a crying Yuna and that damned sword.

   "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

   "Having a conversation," Rikku replied. "You've been all weird lately."

   "It's called 'moping.' Everyone's entitled to do it once in awhile." He reached for her wrists, tugging her hands from his shoulders. "If your hands are _freezing cold damnit,_ keep them to yourself."

   With a sniff, she pulled free. Immediately after, she slipped her frigid hands under the blanket, planting them on his bare abdomen. He hissed, sucking his stomach in involuntarily. "Stop that already."

   "All right," she agreed, with a movement that felt like it might have been a shrug. The icy fingers retreated from his flesh.

   "What do you want?" he grumbled, rolling over onto his side and propping his head up with his hand.

   "Cid's talking about…rebuilding Home," she said with a sigh. "I don't know what I want to do, and I want to talk to you about it."

   "Have you talked to Yuna?" he said, feeling a strange twist of worry.

   "Yes, of course. I won't leave her for another three months, at the least—things are just barely beginning to settle, and she thinks it'll help future sentiments toward the Al Bhed if one of us is there with her…"

   "So—uh—you could stick around for longer than that, ya?" He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

   "I guess. But I'd like to be there when we begin digging. It would—help it feel like Home, I think." She flopped backwards onto his stomach, making him expel an involuntary _oomph_ of air. "I miss the old Home so much sometimes," she whispered, her breath warm on his skin.

   He weaved his fingers into her loose hair in a gesture of casual affection. They'd never really sorted out their relationship in a conversation or anything; somehow it had smoothly gone from friendship to flirtation and then stalled on its way to 'something more' after all the recent upheaval—both personal, due to Tidus and Auron's abrupt departures for the Farplane and…wherever, and political. It felt…comfortable, but he liked things to be laid out the way they were _supposed to be._

   "Wanna go get dinner sometime?" he said.

   "Are you changing the subject, Wakka?" she asked, playfulness edging her voice.

   "Nah—"

   "Because if you are, well, that was the least subtle excuse for a subject change I've ever seen. Really, you got to _ease_ into it. Have to coax the subject change, tease it—"

   "That sounds dirty," he said uncomfortably, suddenly aware that her mouth was practically against his lower abdomen.

   "Pervert," she accused cheerfully. "And yes."

   "Yes what?"

   "Yes, I want to go get dinner sometime. Now, about my original subject—y'know? What do you think?" She shifted her weight, one of her elbows digging into his ribs.

   There was a long pause. "Hey, I ain't gonna stop you or anything—"

   "You're a smart man sometimes," she put in, tracing his bellybutton with her finger. It tickled in a vague, interest-inducing kind of way.

   "—And maybe, yeah, I'd rather you stuck around, but then again, you can come and visit and maybe if I figure out how to conjugate your damn Al Bhed verbs, I can visit you there, ya?"

   "Sounds good to me." Her fingers inched over the indents of his clenching stomach muscles.

   "Rikku, your hands are cold," he reminded her.

   "Hhhmph, you're no fun." She laced his fingers with hers. "C'mon. Let's go somewhere."

   "_What_?"

   "Didn't you say you'd take me to dinner?"

   "It's—" His eyes sought out the red glow of the machina clock. "Three in the morning," he protested.

   "All right, let's go get breakfast then." She tugged on his arm. "I'm sick of this, almost. All these robes, all this ceremony that comes with defeating Sin and negotiating with Yevonites and everything—let's go swimming or fight fiends or something. I've got the worst case of cabin fever."

   That was when he realized it might be best for her if she did go. He had been so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn't noticed that. "You know the way out of this stupid city? We could go to Macalania Woods—"

~*~

   _Home sweet home._

_   Home is where the heart is._

_   Home is where you hang your hat._

_   You can never truly go home…_

Was the last one an adage? She wasn't sure. Either way, it was the truth.

   Shifting her heavy pack from one shoulder to the other, Rikku made a little sigh. Her companion gave her a glance.

   "You okay?" Wakka asked.

   "Yeah, I'm fine," she said. That was the truth, too, more or less.

   "Well…uh, yeah." He scratched the back of his head.

   A pause. "Good-bye," he said at last, shoving his hand out to her. "Not for good, ya?" he added uncertainly, as if he were making sure.

   With another adjustment of her pack, so she could take a free up an arm without falling over backward, Rikku caught his larger hand up in her own and shook it. She shook her head emphatically. "Of course not for good! I'll come to visit in Besaid in a month or two."

   _(And Yuna would be solemn and sad, and Tidus would still be gone, and there would be villagers who stared at the green-eyed Al Bhed heathen and she wouldn't enjoy it much at all.)_

   But maybe he would come to Home first. She thought that she'd like that.

   "Yeah." He broke their handshake and mussed her hair affectionately. "Later, then," he said, gesturing out the window. They were clearly descending toward rolling dunes that stretched in every direction. When she squinted, she could make out the dark rock jutting out of blond sand in the distance. It was a foundation suitable for tunneling into. _So that's our new Home._

   "Good luck," he added quietly. "With Home and all, ya?"

   Rikku nodded solemnly.

   He raked a hand through his hair. "Uh—don't go off and get married to some Al Bhed kid while you're here, got that?"

   She giggled. "I'll invite you to the wedding."

   He snorted. "I mean it."

   "I mean it, too. Buy me something expensive and pretty for a wedding gift."

   "Ya…" he sounded melancholy.

   "Oh, come on, you know I'm just kidding." She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet.

   "I know that. It's just—ah, never mind. You know?"

   "Yeah," she said, because she did understand. "Same goes for you, you know. Get married to Lulu or Yunie or some cute Besaid girl and I'll be irritated."

   He did laugh then, almost in spite of himself. "Gotcha."

   She rested her forehead comfortably against his shoulder, enjoying the last few minutes as they ticked rapidly by. The whole pilgrimage had left a bittersweet imprint on her mind—Yuna's life and Tidus' death (or whatever), the heated post-Sin conflict, the grudging acceptance of the Al Bhed running side-by-side with a fervent reemergence of the old hatred, revived by stubborn Yevonites. And then there was this, Wakka, and the thing that might-be-could-be something like love or at least enduring friendship and lust…

   "Come with me," she said impulsively. "Pack up your things and give it a try for a week."

   But he had started shaking his head when she first opened her mouth.

   "A _week,_" she continued anyway. "Is a week going to kill you?"

~*~

   It was nearly a month past her unsuccessful attempt to get him to come with her when she heard a thick Besaid accent butchering Al Bhed, followed by the throaty chortle of her Brother and then the first voice griping at Brother in the common tongue. She stopped dead in her tracks, toweling off the sweat from her latest patrol with Lissa and Tonnell around the perimeter of New Home, taking out fiends in their shift of a never-ceasing watch. It would be like this until they got decent defenses up.

   Then her legs started churning underneath her. She turned the corner to the main hall, boots skidding on the powdery rock-and-earth mixture covering the makeshift sheet flooring. "Wak~ka," she sang out happily, catching him around the waist in a bear hug. One of his arms circled over her shoulders.

   "I decided you were right. A week can't kill me, ya? Though I might end up killing your Brother, but that's a different matter."

   "You can't kill him, 'cause then I would have to avenge the family honor and whatall," she said, the words muffled against his bright yellow blitzer's vest. "Besides, he's our only pilot. Essential personal."

   "I knew there was probably a catch." He scuffed the toes of his sandals against the floor. "Um, so where should I stow this stuff?"

   _"Not in _Rikku's_ room,"_ Brother said in Al Bhed.

   Rikku elbowed him sharply. "Hey! C'mon, this way." Wakka followed her, his eyes scanning around as if he felt distinctly out of place. She supposed she'd owe him a trip to Besaid after this.

~*~

A/N: I know it isn't a definite ending, in the 'I-love-you' sense. But I've already done much more romance than I planned for when I originally started writing this, and I think it's clear enough that there will be a 'happy ending' of a more definite sort three-five years down the road for Rikku and Wakka. Obviously, it goes AU from the end of FFX, unless you really want to pretend it matches up with canon and we have Wakka/Lulu and maybe Rikku/Gippal in the future. :P I'm sticking with my happy-AU. If any of this chapter feels choppy, let me know. It got reworked extensively a few times, which is why it's much later than the promised 'one week' and that might have caused some choppiness. I'm not catching it, but it's one o'clock in the morning. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it and I may write a one-shot sequel (of the gratuitous happy fluff kind, or maybe even of the plot-with-incidental-gratuitous-fluff kind) if I get enough scene ideas pieced together. We'll see. Thank you for reading and thanks to everyone who reviewed.


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